


The Steward

by july_19th_club



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Give Drumknott Love 2k18, The Most Reserved Found Family, Then again, a crew of small cockroaches could be chewin on those bones, and i’d be like ach! tis only me crepitation, but we're gonna use the word 'comfort' very loosely here, h/c, i realized i’d had a cartilage tear in my knee two years ago and never known, i’m replacing my dad with havelock vetinari and it’s OBVIOUS, lets all give rufus drumknott a big hand i wanna hear u, thanks terry for letting me build in this sandbox of yours ive had a great time, this is the first time in years i’ve written anything in 3rd person past and had it turn out decent, while i was doing injury research for this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 04:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15678228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/july_19th_club/pseuds/july_19th_club
Summary: Rufus Drumknott is settling into his new job at the palace when an emergency strikes. As he finds himself taking charge (or trying to, and very handily if he says so himself), he learns a little bit more about his employer and finds their dynamic rearranging itself. Everyone needs someone they can trust.





	The Steward

**Author's Note:**

> I think I subscribe to the school of thought that says Men At Arms is where Vetinari starts to really come into his own, and also that it’s the book in which he starts to roll back his pessimistic, sort of grim everyone-is-bad-always-and-the-only-difference-is-what-side-you’re-on viewpoint. I always thought that when he said that in Guards, Guards, he was including himself. Except that eventually he starts to think that a) other folks are maybe not always at the heart of it cruel and b) maybe neither are you, and that coldness and cruelness aren’t mutually exclusive. Also him making a rather hefty mistake and confronting the consequences of it. So I wanted to explore all that, and also some h/c by way of a Very Reasonably Wary Person trusting a friend in a time of need. 
> 
> I don't tend to ship Vetinari and Drumknott, because everybody knows he's in love with sam vimes. In his relationship w/ Drumknott I like to think he's become more like a weird dad, and neither of them really know how that happened. So this is a father-son fic. Please enjoy.

He had taken the position a little over a year and a half ago, after the dragon thing had unexpectedly opened it up. When your predecessor summons a primordial beast to terrorize the city and then dies as a direct result of his own hubris, you tend to come into things with certain expectations. So did Rufus Drumknott begin his tenure as personal secretary to the Patrician of Ankh and Morpork.

Mostly, what Rufus knew was math. At heart, he was an accountant. In his twenty-some years, he’d never had room to resent the fact that he looked, dressed, and sounded like an accountant. He wore glasses that he cleaned, frequently, with a little cloth that he kept in his vest pocket, and he rarely polished his shoes, and his suits were all a little lumpy from the fact that he did not know exactly how to press them. He was plain, socially competent, and good with numbers. That was his selling point in life, and he’d made the most of it. Now that he was working for His Lordship, he was a slightly neater, better-dressed, posher accountant, but an accountant he remained. He was also a secretary, a housekeeper’s clerk, and a political aide. There was a lot that went into the job.

For starters, nowhere in his rather-less-than-expensive education had there been a course on the identification, administration, and subsequent neutralization, of poisons. Nor had he been required to learn to throw knives with more or less destructive accuracy, or map out routes through the city and countryside by which a very important person might pass unnoticed if they wanted to go out without a bodyguard on business. Some days he was asked to hire someone off the street, and then that person would go around test-bribing the guards. Any that failed would be fired, no second chances. Or he would observe the food tasters before meals, take notes as they pointed out smells and textures to watch out for. Some days Vetinari gave him mock scenarios to work his way through. There would be a note on his desk with breakfast: _Quirm has declared war. An assassin has broken guild rules and is asking for our protection. Fire is sweeping through the city and the palace itself is ablaze. How do you respond? How are your skills best utilized?_ He would fill the quizzes out before lunch and get his feedback in the afternoons.

His worst subject was poisons. There were too many variables, and in real life, with things like math, you could move variables around, eliminate them, but with poisons you had to inspect, and suspect, everything. It was overwhelming. It was so easy to draw the wrong conclusion, and while Vetinari himself knew more than Rufus would ever hope to know on the subject, he suspected that there were things even he would easily have overlooked. Variables were, in the end, fallible, and you had to rely on not planning, on being able to improvise better than anyone else could plan. So, while he tried, he never felt his poison studies were quite up to scratch. He would come to regret that, and sooner rather than later. But the work went on, and when you worked for the man who ran the Ankh-Morpork, you knew you were looking at a heftier load than the average city clerk. He learned the unorthodox information. He studied national history. And he kept at it, even after he felt he was getting the hang of the job, because if there was one thing the boss respected, it was evidence that you were not complacent. Complacency wasn’t just about lazy awareness - it was about safety, yours and others’.

And there were social aspects, the picking up of which had given him rather more ability to network in everyday life than he’d had prior to the job. He hobnobbed in a discreet way when the Patrician attended various highbrow functions, learning which of the attendees was mad at him this week and for what reason, and which ones felt more kindly toward their leader. He cataloged all of these opinions, and Vetinari would sit down with him later going over the results, targeting weak spots in the social agenda based on who it was helpful to upset and who would be best kept comfortable for the time being. At first, Rufus had the mistaken impression that all of this meant His Lordship was actually more in the hands of the people than he’d believed from the outside. Later he realized it was the opposite: the more Vetinari knew about whose graces he was in and out of, the more his policies twisted to accommodate without actually accommodating at all - always gracefully avoiding full-blown confrontation but still finding ways to frustrate anyone who was not in line, or who had decided their title gave them the power to make the rules around here.

That was how the nobility were dealt with. The guilds were a different matter. The guilds controlled the street, and whoever controlled the street had sway. So when Rufus attended those meetings, he took careful notes longform, and the discussions afterwards was not about bruised egos and uppity minor barons with sticks up their bums. If Queen Moll said her territory was being encroached upon by unlicensed entrepreneurs, or a minor guild said that their shops had been insufficiently patrolled and fallen prey to burglary, the concerns were heard seriously. Sometimes the small guild was burgled because they could not afford a fee to the Thieves guild for the entire business; delays and treaties would have to be brokered until they had gotten their feet more firmly on the ground. Sometimes a guild head was asking too much, and would have to be dismissed. These councils were always tense, the air tainted with the thin, sour smell of conflicting interests under stress, but they were always more civil than the ones with the gentry.

And after a while, there was rhythm. Most days, Drumknott worked in the office - his office, a perk he’d never had before. It was small, granted, a sub-chamber off to the side of the actual Oblong Office, but it was his and he kept it neat and cherished the privacy it gave him. He did the bookkeeping, answered and sorted the mail, received visitors and decided the importance of their reasons for needing an audience with the Patrician. He settled in. He didn’t decorate the little office - he wasn’t very good at things like interior design - and he didn’t really let loose at the end of a shift - he didn’t really know how - but he found himself enjoying life as a working piece of the palace. His apartment, on the ground floor at other side of the complex, had a nice view of the garden. He had a few friends on the staff (most of them middle-aged mums, but that was how it went, he’d noticed, with his work relationships). And the days moved by in a well-oiled rhythm. On the anniversary of his first day on the job, he’d gotten the boss a present: a clock for the waiting room. It didn’t tick quite right, but he’d figured that was a bonus. His Lordship was always looking for ways to keep the antechamber welcoming to his guests, only by welcoming he meant ‘most likely to get right to the point and not waste more time than necessary.’ Boring walls and distracting appliances were part of that. As soon as you were in, the idea was, you wanted to get back out, and Rufus could have sworn the clock got a chuckle out of His Lordship. Or it could have been a cough.

For his first-year-on-the-job anniversary, Rufus got a raise. That was equitable.

+++

And then the shooter came to the Tower of Art, and everything changed.

He wasn’t there when it happened. He’d had work to finish, the end of the fiscal quarter was coming up and the palace expense records could use another once-over. His Lordship had gone out to the wedding - Soon-to-be Sir Samuel Vimes, night watchman and general troublemaker, tying the knot with Lady Sybil Ramkin, richest eccentric in town. It was going to be the event of the year - if not for the madman in the streets. He’d struck, Rufus later learned, right as the coach was reaching the university. First the Patrician, then, one after another, two of the watchmen rushing toward him. They’d been trapped behind the upturned coach, but in the lull between shots had made it into the building. Then the watch had spread out, and found the culprit after a desperate chase through the cellars that fanned and twisted below town. They’d followed him into the Guild of Assassins, and cornered him in an office. _His_ office.

Rufus heard only a little about what took place in that confrontation. He did learn that Dr. Cruces, the head of the guild himself, had been behind the attacks. He had struck with the _gonne_ , a unique and uniquely deadly weapon, which had since been hidden in an undisclosed location that Rufus was pretty sure, from context clues, was the grave of the watchman killed that day. He’d been a dwarf - a well-liked fellow, hardly a month into the job. And dwarves had to be buried with weapons.

But Vetinari didn’t get into the details until later. The first Rufus heard of the disaster was that afternoon, when carriage wheels in the back courtyard rattled up to the single window of Rufus’s office. He’d looked out, surprised the reception had ended so quickly, and then sprinted down the hall, his careful records splattered with ink from his dropped pen. He met the arriving party halfway up the outside stairs, and no wonder. It was slow going. The Patrician was upright, and moving, but only just. His chin inclined toward his chest. His robes, black as usual, clung to his boots as if wet. Two watchmen had stepped out of the coach and were supporting him from either side, carefully walking up one shallow marble stair at a time. Rufus froze.

_You alone are working in the palace. The Patrician is out on social business. Suddenly he returns, visibly injured and for all you know, helpless._

_What can you do?_

_What do you know that will benefit the situation? What skills are relevant?_

_How do you respond?_

There was a sedan chair somewhere inside the doorway. Most of the entrances had them, for visitors, although Vetinari didn’t much use them personally. And he could hear voices behind him, some of the staff had surely recognized a commotion. He spun around and sprinted back up the steps. The head butler caught his gaze, and before Rufus could even open his mouth, pointed to the closet by the door. “Chair. You two. Now.”

A pair of footmen brushed past Rufus as he turned outside again. _What next?_ They could get him inside, then what? He would have to know what had happened to do anything about it. No plans without information. But neither of the watchmen were focused on him, and the coachman, who wore no official signia, was already closing the doors and turning his team toward the street.

Rufus took a deep breath, and raised his voice. “You there! Wait just a minute.”

“I’m a city coach, mate,” the man said, distantly. “I got places to be.”

He wouldn’t have said that to Vetinari. _The man’s back’s turned for two seconds_ , thought Rufus vaguely. He cleared his throat. “You’ve got one place to be, the way I see it. Maybe indefinitely.”

It was a hollow threat, but most of them were, here. It was just that it was more obvious if someone who wasn’t His Lordship was doing it. He decided he’d better belabor the point. “Or you could have a lot of places to be, for a while, lots of which you get to choose, and the places I want you to be today are just at the top of them. It’s up to you. Mate.”

The coachman’s team stuttered in their traces for a moment, clearly unsure if they were being told to move or stay, and then settled down. Wordlessly, the driver tipped his hat.

Rufus looked down the steps, and into the face of the Patrician. He’d never seen anyone’s look so unnerving, but it was who the face belonged to that made it frightening. He looked both bewildered and almost afraid, and so washed out he was nearly grey. Rufus wasn’t sure how he was still holding onto the shoulders of the watchmen, but his knuckles had gone white. Slowly, as if it took work to bother, he frowned. Focused. Rufus’s stomach flipped.

“...Drumknott.” It seemed to take him an age to speak.

“Sir?” He shuffled sideways down the wide steps as fast as he could manage. Close up, he could see Vetinari’s whole body shaking. “Sir, what happened?”

But now he was looking somewhere over Rufus’s left shoulder, and he knew the opportunity was gone. Rufus tried to use the steady voice that had leapt out of him a moment ago, and not the tiny scared one he could feel boiling up in his throat. “Get him inside,” he heard himself say, and the watchmen carefully transferred their burden to the footmen. As he was helped into the chair, Rufus heard him gasp - a loud, harsh, sharp sound over so quickly he wondered for a second where it had come from. And then they were heading back up the steps, diagonally to lessen the jostling, and inside.

The watchmen looked down at him, or rather, one looked down because he was rather taller than Rufus, and the other looked directly at him even though he was standing a step lower. The shorter guard had a fatherly, middle-aged face, now lined with worry. The big one was _Him_ \- everybody knew him - Carrot, broad and friendly and almost disturbingly heroic. Rufus remembered the look on Vetinari’s face the last time they’d had a conversation about him, and nearly drew back a step. If the boss didn’t trust someone, he had a good reason. Always.

But the freckled face only showed concern and weariness now. He was favoring a shoulder, where the metal of his breastplate seemed to have been dented and bloodied, but he looked to be capable of answering some questions. “Again. What happened?”

“You haven’t heard?” asked the old guard.

Rufus’s mouth dropped open. “Pretend I haven’t.”

“Shot. They were shootin’, at the wedding.”

“There was only one shooter,” Carrot corrected. “Dr. Cruces. And he’s taken care of. But it was...we didn’t get to him on time.” He sighed, and looked down at his boots. “Maybe if we had...” He shifted his shoulders, and pulled them back to attention. “We take full responsibility. We didn’t figure it out soon enough, and that’s why this has happened, Mr...”

“Drumknott,” Rufus said, his voice far away.

“Sorry, Drumknott. Of course. The assassin’s been...apprehended, and we can promise you that it’s over. You can ask any details you want, only he should be seen to first. And you might wish to come down to the Yard and I can give you the full report.”

His heels clicked together, faintly, as he finished speaking. But Rufus was still stuck several sentences earlier. “Sorry, did you say Cruces tried to take Vetinari out?”

“Something about him trying to install a king. Mr. Drumknott.”

“Nasty business,” added the older watchman, and shook his head sorrowfully.

“A king.”

“Damned if I know,” said the older watchman.

“As I said,” Carrot interrupted, bouncing (almost nervously, Rufus thought) on the balls of his feet, “I can give you the full report, if you’d like, later.”

“Right.”

Rufus opened his mouth, realized he didn’t have a response prepared, and shut it again. Somehow this interview had gotten away from him. He’d gone into it with questions and now he had more. That wasn’t how the scenarios were supposed to go. _No plans without information_. But also, and in bigger letters: _no plans_. He would leave the why behind for now, he decided. If Carrot thought it was safe, then it probably was, no matter Rufus’s personal misgivings. And his careful avoidance of the king topic was food for thought. Cruces. A teacher, leaving all that was stable and successful and powerful about his life, to harm someone who had presumably once been his student. That made it extra wrong, somehow. And other people, complete strangers, had _died_ in pursuit of that goal.

He knew where to send the coach. Nodding at the watchmen, he walked down to the driver. He had to be careful on the steps. Many of them were slick with smudges of tracked blood. “Back to the Assassin’s Guild, please. If their doctor on retainer is there, bring him back. If not, go looking until you find him. If he has assistants, bring them too. Double rates for you if you’re quick,” he added, as an afterthought. If it had been Rufus, he wouldn’t have wanted to drive today’s tasks on an empty purse.

The coachman gave an ironic salute, and snapped the reins. A moment later, he was alone with what remained of the night watch.

“I suppose we’re done, for now,” he said, slowly. “We’ll have that report tomorrow. Good day.”

“Aye,” said the older guard, and shook his head again as they turned and trudged away.

+++

The coachman returned in less than half an hour. The doctor that the assassins paid regularly was, indeed, at the guild headquarters, and it had been some work getting him to be parted with, but at last it had been done. Lord Downey, apparently acting head of the organization, had sent him with a note adding that he expected a meeting as soon as possible. He would call at the palace at five tomorrow. He hoped it would not inconvenience, but the events of today had been his business too.

It could do nothing _but_ inconvenience, but Rufus had entered a state of ‘taking things in stride’ that left him scoffing at the idea that anyone could throw him further than he’d already been thrown. He led the doctor upstairs, and on towards the Patrician’s chambers. The logic was simple, but, he thought, fairly solid: the guild, from whose illustrious and treacherous ranks the Patrician himself had matriculated, had been led by a man who, without commision or contract, had attempted to inhume one of their own. Therefore, it was up to them to see to it that the victim survived, and with stakes like that on the line, Rufus thought it was pretty unlikely that the doctor would do anything that would further endanger Vetinari’s health. He was guaranteed to work his hardest, because otherwise someone would be endangering his.

Then it was just waiting. Rufus sat outside in the hallway, then stood up and paced around in the hallway, and then leaned against the banister and crossed his arms and stared at the door. Eventually one of the maids the doctor had pressed into service (he’d brought no aides of his own) opened it. She leaned back a pace as she did, and blinked for a moment at Rufus. “C’min,” she said, recovering herself. “Sawbones wants a word.”

Nobody on the staff ever called Drumknott ‘sir’ or bothered with formality, but he felt better that way. It meant they didn’t think he was above them, and that meant he could still talk to them more or less normally. The doctor, a thin little man with curly grey hair, did call him ‘sir.’ He’d met this man before, he thought, at functions maybe. Normally he was one of the less restrained assassin-associated people, nearly belligerent if he was in the right mood. Rufus had heard he’d once swordfought someone over their having insulted his dog. Now he was deferential, and as soon as Rufus came into the room, he bowed. Rufus did not normally get bowed to. As she moved past with a bucket of water, the maid raised her eyebrows at him.

The guild doctor ran through his examination in fits and starts. The implement which had injured the Patrician had behaved more or less like a bolt from a powerful bow, but it wasn’t. To the best of the doctor’s knowledge (and Rufus suspected his knowledge was pretty extensive) it had been a metallic projectile, fired with extreme force, enough to punch through bone and tissue. It wasn’t lodged; it had gone through part of the thigh, above the knee, and then out again, but it had left significant damage in its wake. Before long, Rufus realized that every time he asked a question, the doctor’s voice would lower another nearly imperceptible degree, and for a split second his eyes would dart across to the recumbent Vetinari. Finally Rufus had to take him by the elbow and lead him back out into the hall.

“Just clear this up for me,” he said, pulling the door closed. He tried not to think the way the doctor was - that paranoid _is he listening how much is he judging what is he going to disapprove_ line wasn’t productive. “He’ll live, right?”

“He should ought,” the doctor said. “How well he’ll walk on it...we’ll see. Projectiles like that, they open up more space on the exit than they do on the entrance. He’s lucky it didn’t hit an artery.”

“Would that...” As if Rufus knew enough about anatomy to carry on an intelligent conversation about it now.

“Well, if it had, he’d have bled out long before I got to him, for starters.”

“Oh.”

“If there’s no infection I see no reason for an amputation in the future.”

_Oh._ “You’ll be back up this evening, and tomorrow.” He made it a statement. He was sure the fellow didn’t want to spend any more time here than he had to, but this was Rufus’s job now. To make sure things were being looked after.

“Yes sir.”

“Anything we should know about? What should I do?” Behind him, the door edged open again and the maid came through with a tray. Out of the corner of his eye he saw blood and metal.

“Blood loss causes weakness. He should drink water. Eat something rich. Don’t worry about the dressings, the maid has instructions.”

“Thank you,” Rufus said, and shook the man’s hand formally, and watched, leaning on the banister, as he made his way down the stairs. The roof above him had glass panels that let light in, and they were dimming quickly. Suddenly he felt very tired.

Inside the bedroom, there was even less light. On the side table, there was a full pitcher of water, so he poured himself a glass and sat down. The Patrician lay underneath a number of blankets, eyes closed, although this did not necessarily mean he was asleep. It was very quiet. The room did look out onto the garden, but from a distance, so that none of the songbirds or activity in it really penetrated. A creak from outside betrayed someone walking past in the hall. The curtains drifted gently by a half-open window. Everything smelt a little metallic, and the faded wallpaper, patterned with subtle vines, seemed to give off a sort of greenish, underwater glow.

Eventually, Vetinari said, “Hm. Drumknott.”

“Sir.”

“Do you...know what a _gonne_ is?” He lay nearly completely still against what, for him, was a lot of pillows - or maybe it wasn’t. Drumknott didn’t have much occasion to come in here and he’d always pictured the Patrician as the sort of man who slept on a cot in a cell. But this was just a regular room for a rich person, with a regular amount of rich-person pillows. Among them, His Lordship looked even thinner than usual. “Do you know what it does?”

Rufus had to think for a moment, but two and two came together quickly. “One of Leonard’s inventions, isn’t it?”

Vetinari took a breath. “I was the one who suggested the Guild house it. It...made sense at the time. They don’t like...flashy operations. They prefer...quiet. They try not to produce collateral damage. Something like a rulebook for their work.”

“You didn’t think they’d use it? Or you didn’t think they’d use it on you?”

“I didn’t think.”

Rufus had nothing to say to that. Vetinari closed his eyes for so long that Rufus thought he had gone to sleep, but then he opened them again. “It will been disposed of. Properly this time. The plans as well.”

“Of course, sir. Making sure it doesn’t kill anyone else.”

“The gonne cannot kill people on its own.”

“I’m sure it makes it easier.”

“Succinct as always. This is true.” He shifted, not enough to sit up, but enough to face Rufus better. “Is that water?”

“Oh. Yeah - um, yes, sir. Doc says you should drink lots. For your...blood.” His mind circled through stages of guilt ( _i’m taking his water. shit_ ) and surprise, although by now he should know better. The conversation about the _gonne_ was, just like that, over. It wouldn’t be held again on Rufus’s terms.

“Replenishes nutrients. I did take anatomy,” said the Patrician mildly. Rufus poured another glass, and he took it - carefully, Rufus noted, so as to minimize shaking. “And a drink.”

“What, at the wedding?”

“No, after I was shot.”

There was a fifty-fifty percent chance that this was sarcasm. Rufus said, “Oh. Can I ask why?”

“The Archchancellor seemed to think it was appropriate.”

“Oh.” Then, “He generally seems to.”

“Indeed.”

Rufus crossed to the open window. “Close this, sir?”

“Leave it as is, for now, will you?”

“Sir. Anything else? Guild doctor said you should-”

“Eat something rich, yes. If you’d be so good as to have something sent up.”

“Will do, sir.”

“Did he mention if he would be back soon?”

“Tonight, sir.”

“Thank you, Drumknott.” He sighed. “Please don’t let me keep you.”

Rufus went, but told himself privately that it was only because he’d said ‘ _please_ ,’ and that surely if His Lordship needed anything, he could just ring the bell. Rufus’s job was over. He could go home for the night. But when he slept it was in thin broken stretches, and sometime in the middle of it all he heard a sound he was certain was a _gonne_ , a brittle cracking boom that shook him awake and sent him sprinting halfway down the corridor before he’d collected himself. In the morning he’d looked outside his apartment window and seen only a broken branch fallen from a nearby tree.

+++

The second day was, somehow, worse. Rufus had steeled himself to be on his feet all day, at the beck and call of His Lordship, and the lack of sleep had done nothing to help him prepare. He’d imagined a gamut of caregiving: speed-walking up and down every time the bell rang, fetching notebooks and tea and doctor and painkiller and generally had expected the Patrician to ask for quite a lot - or, not to ask or demand but do that somewhere-in-between thing under whose influence most things in the palace got done. In short, he’d expected to be busy.

Only, Vetinari didn’t do that. He didn’t ask for anything, in fact, which at first Rufus found a relief. For about half an hour. After that, he’d got worried, headed upstairs of his own volition, found the man sitting with his breakfast on a tray, looking pale but composed, asked him if he’d wanted anything, been quietly but firmly rebuked, gone back downstairs to his office, sat for half an hour, and then, feeling feeling uneasy again, had gone right back up and repeated the entire ordeal.

That was the entire day. Around midmorning, the doctor had returned, changed the dressings, said again that no infection seemed imminent. Or so Rufus heard, from Mildred Easy, who was the maid in that wing and had been pressed into service to help with bandages. Rufus supposed he should have made a note for the doctor to keep him looped in, but then again, so should Vetinari.

When Rufus went up a little after noon, the Patrician was no longer in his bed. Rufus found him at the small desk by the window, in his dressing gown, his one concession to injury propping his bad leg up on a footstool. He looked up impatiently as Rufus leaned into the room. “Yes?”

“Can I ask...sorry, what are you doing over there, sir?”

“I walked here,” Vetinari said calmly.

Right. “Well. Is there anything you need while you’re there?”

“I think I should be all right.”

“Doctor comes back at six, remember. And Downey’s scheduled a meeting with you at five. He sort of strong-armed me into it yesterday, sir, while you were...unavailable. Do you want to meet him, or shall I come up with something and stall him?”

“If you could. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Have you been much busy today?”

Rufus had to admit that he had, and not just with this. The other guild heads had wanted his attention, too, some via written missive but Boggis and Palm in person. Every one of them wanted to know what they could do to help, not a sentiment, he admitted, he’d heard from any of the more hereditarially monied families, but of course it wasn’t without fine print. Navigating their desires to provide now in the hopes that they would later be provided for required a more delicate diplomatic hand than Rufus’s, and he’d rescheduled most of them. Next week, he imagined, would not be pleasant. “It’s been steady, sir,” he said simply. “I’ve had a handle on things.”

“Wonderful. I mustn’t keep you any longer, then,” Vetinari said, and Rufus let himself out.

Then, when he’d dealt with the Downey meeting to what he thought would have to be the best of his satisfaction, he closed his office for the day and went to pick up the doctor personally. “He’s in there walking around,” he said, accusingly, as they rattled their way back to the palace.

“He shouldn’t,” the doctor said.

“No, I know that, but he’s doing it. You see if he takes advice any better coming from you.” Not that Rufus had actually tried to give His Lordship... _advice_ , per se. “Anyway, I think you’d better get him some crutches, or something. To be prepared.”

The doctor nodded, but he was looking out the window, and he didn’t at all seem quite as deferential as he had yesterday. When they got to the palace, Vetinari was back to sitting in bed, and didn’t - or pretended not to - notice Rufus glaring. He stayed for the meeting, probably to His Lordship’s chagrin, but the doctor didn’t seem to think the trip to the desk and back had done any real harm. He would prefer that it not be made a habit, but His Lordship would of course do what he felt was best. And then he departed again.

Mildred sent dinner up while he was leaving, two plates’ worth. She seemed to be honing in on Rufus’s plans for the day. He balanced his plate on his knees and told Vetinari about having dismissed Downey’s request. “Late, so I’ll bet he wasn’t thrilled, sir.”

“Has he replied?”

“Not yet, sir. He probably wants me to stew, but I used your stamp on the letter, sir, so what’s he going to do? Tell you no?”

“Hm.”

And that was it for conversation. Rufus tried to finish his chicken pie quickly, and didn’t even bother to pick out the peas. Some sixth sense told him that Vetinari would surely make some comment if he saw him piling them up on the edge of the plate, even though he seemed to be a pretty fastidious diner himself. Rufus could just tell he was the kind of person who never picked up a crust with his fingers, and he seemed to inspect every bite before he actually bit it. Then again, maybe that was a side effect of the job. No matter how many people had tasted for poison, you were the last defense.

It wasn’t as if they’d ever eaten a meal together before, but Rufus stayed until it was finished. It would be embarrassing, he reasoned, if something happened - spilled soup; a dropped fork. And then the Patrician would have to ring the bell and someone would have to come all the way up to take care of it. Or - and this, he was beginning to see, would be the probable outcome of such a scenario - His Lordship would get up again, do the cleaning-up himself, and then not tell anyone about it, whether he aggravated the wound or not. He was, Rufus understood, going to be one of _those_ invalids.

So it was Rufus who kept a weather eye out on the dinner tray, and rang Mildred for the dishes, and made sure there was a supply of candles, paper, and ink by the bedside table, as well as water, and another bell to ring for him in the next room. Last night there had been staff, but tonight they were going home at the regular hour, and Rufus thought it was probably best to be available. He’d stayed late at his office often before, doing the books, but never all night. The room next door was splendid, if a bit much for his personal tastes, all ribbons of gold-leaf and crowded decorative molding. The bed was also on the far side of the room, too far away to hear a hand bell if one rang out from behind a closed door. In the end, he compromised; dragged a chaise lounge out of the room and set it in the hallway with a blanket and pillow, kicked off his shoes, and slept.

+++

The next day, Vetinari decided he was going to get into the office and catch up on paperwork. Rufus asked, hopelessly, at breakfast, if he could just bring the paperwork to the bedroom, but His Lordship didn’t like it. Today there would be meetings, apparently more than just the one with Downey. And apparently they couldn’t be held in one’s bedroom, even if one sat at one’s bedroom desk and combed one’s hair and had a shave.

Rufus thought of himself as a patient type, but he could feel himself agreeing and offering accommodations with less sympathy now than he’d had yesterday. Vetinari picked up on it, of course, and asked him if he was overtired. He wasn’t. He’d slept all right this time, despite the drafty hallway and the slightly-too-short couch. In fact, he’d slept right through the night and had only woken up when the doctor from the guild had come and coughed politely in his ear at nine in the morning.

He _had_ brought a pair of crutches, and Rufus almost told him to hide them; it would only encourage the man. But instead he dragged the lounge back into the other room, left for his apartment, and got washed up. By the time he’d returned, Vetinari had installed himself at his desk in his office, the curtains open behind him to the grey Ankh-Morpork morning. He nodded briskly by way of greeting, and Rufus got to disappear into his own small office and close the door.

For a few hours, he managed to focus on work. Downey arrived around ten, was sent to the waiting room, and Rufus was able to imagine with some smugness the newly installed guild’s chair getting more and more irritated by the inconsistent clock. Around eleven, he left again, and his footsteps were audible marching down the hall and away. Rufus resisted the urge to pop back into the oblong office and ask how it had gone. At one-thirty, there was a knock.

Rufus opened the door, and stepped back quickly. His Lordship loomed, a difficult feat when he had to lean against the doorjamb to stand upright and was in any case not that much taller than Rufus. Rufus himself was not that short, but everyone agreed: it was Vetinari’s _personality_ that did the looming.

“Would you send down for lunch,” he said.

Rufus noted the crutches stuffed carefully under the desk. “Right away. Sir.”

“Has anyone from the watch left a note, by the way?”

“You mean Mister Vimes? Technically, he’s on honeymoon, sir. And the last I heard from anyone else was that they were doing the service this morning. For the one that died.”

He sighed. “I see. Well, if you get any notices. Don’t hesitate to make me aware.”

“Of course, sir.” The looming persisted. You couldn’t tell a loomer like _that_ it needed to sit down. Even if it looked distinctly grey-faced and probably regretted its decisions. “How did it go with Downey, sir?”

“Reasonably. He was very candid. I think we shall be able to have an honest relationship with the guild again at some point.”

“Very good, sir.”

The lunch arrived. The door shut.

For the rest of the afternoon, Rufus went back and forth. Physically, he stayed at his desk, back to his window, the light growing steadily dimmer around him as he sorted through the letters and requests that had piled up since yesterday’s distraction. Emotionally, he tossed ideas back and forth. It wasn’t as if it was his business if the Patrician wanted to behave as if the events of the wedding had been a glitch in his otherwise steadfast routine. Certainly His Lordship had done similar things in the past. Just remembering the time he’d gotten the flu was enough to make Rufus reconsider any compassion he felt now. But that had been minor. All he’d done was drift around the place having a fever and behaving as if that were no excuse not to work exactly as hard as usual. _This_ was...a whole _situation_. This was a devastating wound, and a deadly killer who had only been caught after incredible effort. This was, maybe, in a way, the Patrician’s fault. Surely that would have to carry some complex emotions with it, whether or not they got aired. And certainly he would probably do things like this in the future. He was not a share-er.

And Rufus had a job to do, and it wasn’t The Emotions Dartboard For The Very Bad Shot.

All through the afternoon, he paid half an ear’s attention to the goings-on next door. There was the occasional shuffling of unsteady feet, the sturdy tread of servants or the few visitors that Drumknott had sent through. Once or twice, the thunk of wood, indicating that the aids were being used. And once a loud crash that must, at least, have been a nearly empty vessel, because the curse that followed it was fairly mild. He kept the door closed, and told himself that if someone wanted anything, they could come and get him.

Towards dusk, heavy boots made their way down the corridor, paused briefly at the door which opened into Rufus’s room, and then went on to the oblong office itself without consulting Rufus. He considered pressing his eye to the keyhole, but didn’t. Voices drifted quietly: the Patrician’s measured one, and one with more natural pauses, more upticks towards the end of sentences. Polite, careful conversation. After a while, the voices faded, and the boots went away, sounding slightly clunkier. Watch boots, Rufus thought. So someone had come by after all.

Thirty minutes later, Rufus realized he’d heard nothing from the oblong office for thirty minutes. Don’t bother, he told himself. It’s nearly dinnertime. Just call for some food and let him do what he wants to do. There’s no need to act like a fussy son.

Rufus opened the door to the office, and the Patrician was, indeed, gone.

He stepped inside. The desk was neat, notebooks laid away as if the work had been set to the side to accommodate this last visitor. The crutches were still under the desk. The vase on the desk corner, the one which usually held something seasonal and unobtrusive but which for one week in May always had lilac, was missing. The pieces, presumably, had been cleared away, hopefully by a maid. _Memo: new vase_. Rufus turned to the hallway, and started a systematic sweep.

One floor down and several hallways later, he passed the open doors of the throne room. Inside, just below the covertly rotting symbol of state, sat the man himself. He had adopted the pose of the thinker, chin resting on fist, one leg bent and the other stretched out in front of him, robes draped almost artfully on the steps.

“Oh, there you are,” Rufus heard himself say, in an arch, exasperated tone that did not sound remotely like his own. “Thought you’d fallen down a well.”

The Patrician turned toward him, looking, if such a thing could be possible, nearly sheepish, and altogether more terrifying for it.

“Let me see,” Rufus went on, kicking himself with every word but quite unable to shut his mouth, “You came down here to meet that watchman without a crutch or anything, and spent the whole meeting marching around being impressive and Oh-Inscrutable-Leader-of-Our-Fair...Our-City, and then when he was gone you realized you were exhausted, so you took a rest and then you couldn’t get back up, but gods forbid you call for help, so instead you’ve been sitting here looking pensive for the last half hour hoping somebody, preferably me, wanders in and finds you.”

He took a deep breath, and a cursed quiet fell upon the room, echoing back and forth against the ancient walls. Rufus felt his ears heat up. “Beg your pardon,” he added, belatedly. “Sir.” Should he push his luck and blame it on lack of rest? Since the lack of rest was, without question, more or less Vetinari’s fault, he probably shouldn’t.

“Ah, Drumknott,” said Vetinari, as if he had only just noticed him there and were prepared to completely ignore the entire dreadful speech, “join me.”

Rufus waited as long as he though he could possibly dare, and then walked to the steps and sat. A memory rose up, without prompting: Rufus at the age of seven, just after having said some very choice things to his math tutor in a fit of misplaced rebellion. “Sir, you’ll have to forgive me, it’s just that I hadn’t seen you, and I-”

“Please. Don’t let me hold you back.”

“You’re not doing things right,” he heard himself say. But that wasn’t it, was it? There was a cool look in Vetinari’s eyes that said no, it certainly wasn’t. He tried again. “You’re not...sorry, I just think...” He swerved, desperately. “So, ah, so the Watch did get in touch?”

The Patrician allowed the conversation to be derailed. “Yes. After all.”

“Vimes?”

“No.”

“So he’s really retiring?” Rufus pictured a Mr. Vimes who sat around in buckled shoes whittling, or something, and found it difficult.

“He’ll be back.” Vetinari clasped his hands. “Given the opportunity, he would always come back. It is what he does. But no, he was at home today, I believe.”

There was only one other option, then. “Was it... _him_?”

The Patrician nodded, and if gestures could be made in a small voice, this one was.

“Oh, no, was it bad?” Despite himself, Rufus sympathized. It put you on the wrong footing, feeling as if you’d disappointed _Him_.

“Not as bad as it could have been,” His Lordship admitted. “All told, it was quite a civil conversation. I think we may have an understanding.”

“Did you show him...” Rufus jerked a thumb backwards at the throne.

“Yes. Of course.”

“What’d he think?”

“He doesn’t want it. Unless I...overstep my bounds. And then he made it clear that he would only hesitate as long as his morals would let him.”

“Good grief.”

“Have I mentioned your knack for the succinct?”

They sat in silence for a moment. Rufus wasn’t sure what had happened, but power had shifted subtly. Vetinari did not have to answer to any one person. That was part of the perks of his job. He answered to many people, which was in its own way easier. Certainly he did not answer to kings.

There were none.

“Sir, I’m sorry I snapped. I’ve been concerned. And you don’t really... _convalesce_ well.”

“I’d have thought you’d have learned that after the flu,” Vetinari said, with what might have been a smile.

Rufus shrugged. “That was different.”

“I should never have given it to the guild.”

“You can’t turn back time, sir. Just improve with what you know now.”

“That’s just a line out of your scenario tips booklet.”

“That you wrote.”

“I don’t think it’s what he wants. This. He’s quite smart, you know. Quite reasonable. Just...”

And that was it. _He_ was reasonable. And just. And strong. Persuasive, but well-meaning. Kind. Helpful. He was all of those things, more than anyone else ever was.

“Think about the fact that I’m called a ‘tyrant.’ ”

“What about it?”

“I believe it’s just a job title, Drumknott.”

“Yes.”

“My point is, everyone should have a system of checks and balances. Basis of a stable government. I suppose it should not be a bad thing that he’s mine.” The Patrician stretched out his other leg, made to bend the wounded one, and stopped, breath hissing through his teeth.

“Ready to go back upstairs, sir?”

He let the breath back out, slowly. “When I was...still in school,” he said, “I made a mistake on a practice mission. Tore the tendon in my knee. This one.” He tapped carefully above the spot where the bandages would be. “I simply...took for granted that it was fixed. That it was over and done with.”

“I’m sure it’ll heal up again, sir.”

“It won’t. Not altogether.” There was a pause. “I consulted your doctor, and it does not matter, Drumknott, if I spend a month in bed or run all the way to Sto Lat tomorrow. It won’t fix the damage. This is a circumstance I shall simply have to...accept.”

“You’re sure?”

“A surgeon is a surgeon, not a magic worker.”

“The wizards-” but Rufus knew better than to finish that sentence. Wizards were just as likely to take your leg clean off as to heal it. Medecine had never been a large component to their trade.

The Patrician was still staring into space, slowly pulling a thread loose from the edge of his sleeve. “It puts me at a disadvantage, Drumknott. I may devise a few new courses for you. And of course I shall have to double down.”

“Hang on, is that why you went out to meet him without the...is that why you’re so nervous about him? Because he’s got a leg up on you physically? Sorry.”

“Undeniably, he is both stronger and more capable at certain things. Many...people are, now. This wouldn’t always have been the case, but _now_ it is, and there is _very_ little I can do about that but keep up appearances. Drumknott, I was educated as a - do you have any idea how _difficult_ \- this position exploits _any_ \- ” His voice became little more than a whisper. “I will not look weak.”

Drumknott’s mouth dropped open. He considered the likelihood that there was anyone else in the world to whom Vetinari would say something like that. It didn’t make him feel any more confident knowing that he was the only man in the camp. “Sir,” he began, brain already buzzing with ignored self-preservation instincts, “you’re really not-”

“Excuse me?”

“Sir, I was just going to say...that...I was only going to say, sir, that you’re not thinking about this practically, only I see now that I should have let it alone, and in fact I will, now, and I beg your pardon.”

“Wait. How do you mean?”

“Sorry, sir?” _I shouldn’t have said anything, I shouldn’t have said anything.._.

“I’d like to hear you explain your reasoning, please.”

“Just...that...it’s not practical to...to eschew tools and, and things that are specifically for the situation you’re in. When you’re in it. I know why you’re doing it, I understand you don’t want to look vulnerable, but it’s still not productive.” He waited. “That’s just what I think,” he added, lamely.

“Well. Thank you for your input,” said Vetinari mildly. “That was...honest, if deliberately vague, of you.”

“Sir-” Rufus felt instinctively that there was only this one window in which to keep being...honest...and that if he wasted it, he’d regret it - “I know it’s about more than crutches, or canes, or watchmen or things, it’s about job security, and you only have that if you can make sure people don’t take advantage, and you - you keep things working, and I get that, so I just want to. Be trustworthy, all right, I just. You can ask me for things. That’s.” He felt he was losing the thread rather abruptly, and took a good look at the floor just below him, which was far safer than any other view in the room. “...Important to me.”

There was a long period of silence.

“Thank you.”

He knew better than to say something like ‘you’re welcome,’ which made the thanks somewhat less gratifying than it would otherwise have been, but it was there, in any case. What it meant ( _that Vetinari did trust him? That he didn’t but didn’t want him to know that? Some other thing?_ ) he didn’t know yet.

“Besides,” he added, “Folks _have_ good intentions sometimes. So that’s why I’ve been angry, sir.”

“Drumknott, if I have any distrust of you, it’s because you haven’t worked here long. As we’ve learned, people with whom one has a long-standing acquaintance can turn out to be incredibly untrustworthy. Surely you understand this.”

Rufus sighed. “I do. But you also think everyone’s bad, sir.”

“I don’t say that.”

“You say that all the time, sir. ‘ _The only difference is what side they’re on_ ’.”

Vetinari graciously ignored the air quotes and the annoyingly deep voice. “In my experience, this has been true.”

“Well, maybe you’re operating under false assumptions.” Besides, he thought traitorously, you trust at least one man. And he’s a weird, skeptical watchman who’s been an alcoholic for twenty years, and you never doubt him, not even when everyone should, and if you can trust that then surely you can expand the pool a little bit.

“Rufus, is the personal important?” Vetinari said. Rufus sat up. It was always Drumknott. “Or...should that which is important be personal?”

Rufus examined the non sequitur. “Sorry, which one are you asking?”

“Either.”

Rufus thought about it. He found he did not have to think for long. He knew he focused too much on work, and was a little socially blunt, but he also knew what he thought about Things In General. He knew those thoughts hadn’t changed much since he’d worked for His Lordship. “I think they have to be, don’t they? How else do you...I mean, everything’s got to be important somehow, right? Yes. Of course.”

Again, a quick, nearly-inaudible sigh. “I suppose there are worse philosophies.” A chime sounded far away in the palace. Seven-fifteen...no, seven-thirty. “Dinnertime, I think. I hope you’ll join me.” He paused. “Things don’t change overnight, Rufus. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

This was a concession, Rufus knew. “Want a hand back upstairs, sir?”

They stood. Or, Rufus stood, and held out an arm. The Patrician reached up and took it. “If you would be so kind.”

+++


End file.
